Electronics Electronics and More Electronics

I had the day off Tuesday and the people I usually hang out with were working so I had to fly solo. I wasn't feeling that great so I did not go anywhere far and decided to just stick around my area. People consider the area I live in the Silicon Valley of Beijing. Everywhere you look you see people with boxes of computers, tv's, laptops, etc....

My digital camera is about 3 years old so I was looking into buying a new one. I walked about a block from the hotel to this building that had posters of the different camera companies. As soon as I hit the door, just like Silk Market, people start screaming and yelling trying to sell me laptops, cameras, and iPods. I wandered around for a little until I found a Nikon booth.

The way this place is set up is that its an office building and they just create these spaces for people. Some stores are big some stores are small. On the outsides are the bigger ones and then the inside they are just counters you walk up to and look at things.

At the Nikon store, pronounced "knee-con" here there were these 4 cute sales girls. They spoke maybe 5 or 6 words of English. I asked how much a camera was and they didn't say it they just punched it on the calculator. They punched in 4500 rmb. ( I am looking at the Nikon D60 which is a 700 dollar camera in the states so I want to see if I can get it cheaper here) I told the girl it was a very high number and she then punched in 4200. We get to talking about the features and she had no clue what I was saying. She pulls out a piece of paper and reads, "my master is upstairs. If you buy now you talk to him and he speak good English. You want go now?"

Not really knowing what she was talking about I said sure. They walked me through the whole first floor...out the door...into another building loaded with electronics and we stopped at an elevator. As we are waiting for the elevator a few things popped in my head. I was either going upstairs and going to get robbed 0r I was going upstairs to talk to the "master." I get in the elevator and it's just me and her. She hits the 15th floor but we stopped on almost every floor on the way up. By the 10th floor I was jammed in an elevator with out any air conditioning and the smell was not the best.

We got off on the 15th floor and it was an office setup. Names of companies on the outside of the door. We walked around the corner and her company had the office in the back. It looked normal so the idea of getting robbed was no longer in my mind. When we walked into the office there were sets of couches all over the place with a coffee table in the middle. She sits me down and there is a calculator and booklet of cameras. The "master" came over and we talked about the price. It is a 700 dollar camera in the states and all of his prices were right around there. I told him I wanted it for 2700 and he said there is no way. He kept trying to talk me into and eventually into buying a whole different camera.

I ended up not buying but the experience was pretty crazy. When I rode the elevator back down I walked around to check out the other things. On the first 3 floors it was all cameras and computers. The next few floors was all stuff to build a computer and memory cards. The memory cards here are dirt cheap for some reason. You can buy an 8gb flash drive for 30 bucks.

On the work side of things everything is going well. We have been feeding Aramark and Olympic staff since Friday. Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. The Olympic people seem pretty happy with the food. They complain in the mornings because there are not enough carbs on the menu and every morning we have to tell them how hard it has been getting food it so we are doing our best. This coming Thursday the shifts are changing. There will be a 3am-1pm shift and a 12pm-10pm shift. I am not sure which I would prefer. This is our last week of just feeding the staff. The media arrives the 25th and that is when it will get crazy. I am actually looking forward to that because I want to get into it already.

It is hard to believe I have been here for 21 days already. It seems like a lot longer. Yesterday they started shutting down factories and only certain cars are allowed to drive each day. You could tell right away because there was a blue sky and you could see the sun. At night we were able to see the moon which was a first. Living in an environment where the sun is barley seen is very strange for me.

I have to get going. I got lucky and scored another day off today so we are going to try and see some sites.